Spoilers
by Bekki
Summary: There were some people that Rose Tyler was never supposed to meet. River Song was one of them  Rose/Ten
1. Chapter 1

SPOILERS

Summary: There were some people that Rose Tyler was never supposed to meet. River Song was one of them (Rose/Ten)

Disclaimer: I do not own Doctor Who or any of its characters

Rose tapped her finger on the outside of the TARDIS as her eyes wandered through the vast marketplace. Once again, The Doctor had grossly over-estimated how long it was going to take to purchase tea. He had a bet with Rose that he could find her a new tea on every planet. Rose didn't have the heart to tell him that she was becoming thoroughly sick of the stuff.

Instead, she spent her alone time with the TARDIS. Usually when The Doctor went on a Tea Mission, she headed out around the planet on her own, but today she was tired and much preferred keeping the old time machine company.

She stroked the TARDIS's outer wall and wondered whether anyone was watching her. She supposed she must look a right idiot, stroking a Police Box. She knew better. The TARDIS was very much alive, and even though she could no longer remember her time spent sharing its consciousness, she knew that somewhere deep within its wooden walls, the TARDIS could feel her and understand her.

"Beautiful, isn't it?"

Rose nearly jumped a foot in the air. She spun around to see a woman in a dress suit smiling up at the TARDIS.

"Hello," she said, still startled.

"Is The Doctor here?" the woman asked, with no introduction.

Rose furrowed her eyebrows and looked discerningly at the older woman. "No," she said. "He stepped out to buy tea. He shouldn't be long." Her mind was filled with questions for this mysterious woman, but for some reason, she kept them back. Instead, she just stared and wondered.

"If it's tea, then I think we can safely wait a good hour," the woman joked. Rose smiled nervously back at her before realizing that the other woman was sizing her up. "What year is it?" she asked, after looking Rose up and down a few times.

"2045," Rose said, cocking her head. So she was a time traveller too, like The Doctor. She couldn't be a Time Lord. Perhaps she was a Time Agent, like Jack Harkness. "Do I know you?" she asked, throwing any thoughts of rudeness to the wind.

"I doubt it," The woman smiled back, apologetically. "The Doctor does, at least he might. I can never quite tell where we're up to. He will eventually if he doesn't now."

Rose shook her head, trying to make some sense of what she was hearing. "Who are you?" she asked, getting too frustrated to care at all about being polite.

The woman merely clicked her tongue and shook her head. "Spoilers," she said. "The real question is, who are you? That might give me some kind of clue as to when we are, from the Doctor's perspective at least." Rose tried to interject, but the woman just kept talking. So like The Doctor… "Right then. Young, blonde. That's interesting. He doesn't usually do blondes. Travel with them, I mean." She pulled a blue book out of her shoulder back and flicked through the pages. "Have you been here long? Because he doesn't…I mean he hasn't travelled with someone like you since…"

The woman suddenly stopped dead. She whipped her head from her book to stare at Rose.

"No," she whispered, and flicked through the book till she found the page she had been looking for. She looked up at Rose then back to the book again.

"You're Rose Tyler."

"Yes."

The woman began to pale. "I never thought I'd be here this early. This is…bad."

Rose crossed her arms in front of her. "What's bad? Who are you?"

The woman still didn't take her eyes off Rose. "I'm River Song," she said, and Rose thought she could identify the look in River Song's eyes. It was part sympathy, part guilt, and something that may have been jealousy.

"What about spoilers?" Rose asked, surprised that River Song had answered her question. "How do you know The Doctor? And why are you looking at me like that?"

"You're so young," River Song said, looking at her wonderingly. "He said you were, but I never imagined."

"He's told you about me?" Rose asked, not because she really wanted to know, but because she couldn't think of anything better to ask.

River Song laughed. It was not a happy laugh. "Not much," she said. "But you know The Doctor. Sometimes it's what he doesn't say."

Rose nodded. She could vouch for that.

"How long have you been with him?" River Song asked. "Is he still in his ninth form? I've always wanted to see it. Big ears, so he tells me."

Rose laughed, despite herself and shook her head. "No. Tenth. String bean."

River Song laughed with her. "Fabulous hair though. Where was the last place you went?"

"2012 Olympics," Rose answered, the laughter still in her voice. River Song's suddenly disappeared.

"What?" Rose asked, worried.

"So soon," River Song said to herself. "I shouldn't be here."

Rose was intrigued. The look on River Song's face was definitely sympathetic now. "Why don't you stay and wait for The Doctor? I'm sure he'd be happy to see you."

River Song seemed to understand Rose's ulterior motive in asking her to stay. She shook her head and backed a few paces away. "No, he doesn't know me yet. I should go."

"What's so soon?" Rose whipped back.

"I should go," she repeated. "I don't think I was supposed to meet you."

Rose fired up. "What do you mean? If you know The Doctor, you must know me. You knew my name!"

River Song said nothing, looking guilty again.

"Why don't you know me? The Doctor…" Rose didn't know how to finish the sentence. She was The Doctor's future. They would be together forever. He promised.

Rose remembered what he had told her, months ago. _"You can spend the rest of your life with me, but I can't spend mine with you."_ Was she dead? In this woman, River Song's life, was Rose Tyler dead?

No. So soon, she had said. Whatever happened was going to happen soon.

"What happens to me?" Rose asked, frantically. "Why don't you know me?"

River Song didn't answer. There were no words. "You will get your happily ever after," she said, when nothing of more use came to her mind. "Don't give up hope. You'll find what you lost." She turned to leave, too grief-stricken to stay.

Rose was gasping for breath. "What do you mean? What will I lose? River Song, come back!"

River Song turned around to take one last look at Rose Tyler. She looked her up and down again, this time, with that same look of sympathy, and something that might have been regret.

"You're his everything," she said simply. She smiled sadly at Rose and walked away.

Rose chased after her, abandoning the TARDIS for a minute. She raced down the hill and through the markets, desperate to catch up with River Song. But there was no sign of her. Defeated, Rose walked back to the TARDIS with a horrible feeling in the pit of her stomach. She stopped. The TARDIS was unlocked. Rose rushed inside and looked around. Nothing was out of place. She sighed and traipsed to her room, closing the door behind her. She looked around. On her bed was an envelope.

_Rose Tyler,_

_Open this when you have found what was lost. Not before. You will know._

Rose traced the lettering wonderingly and tried to calm herself. She ran the conversation with River Song through her mind but could make neither heads nor tails of it. She was going to lose something. And she would lose it soon. She ran a finger under the seal of the envelope, anxious to read what was inside. She sighed and picked it up, placing it in her set of drawers. She shouldn't read it. Not yet. Her stomach knotted itself at the thought of what would have to happen to her before she could read it.

"Bathingswallow Cupcake tea!"

Rose jumped, slamming her drawer closed and turning to face the door. "Doctor!" She brushed her sides and slapped a smile on her face.

"Yes, can you believe it?" The Doctor asked, beaming at her. He seemed completely unaware that anything was wrong. "Bathingswallow Cupcake Tea! The best in the galaxy. Well, best in the solar system. Well…best in this TARDIS…right now…"

"It's the only tea in the TARDIS right now," Rose said, rolling her eyes. It was so easy to get swept up in his energy. She found herself grinning at him, despite herself. Like always.

"Exactly! So…tea?"

The Doctor took her arm and together they drank a pot of alien tea. All Rose's worries about loss and River Song dissolved in The Doctor's antics. Like always.


	2. Chapter 2

A/N: This scene is set in the _Bad Wolf Bay_ universe, between Rose and the Meta-crisis Doctor. Post Journey's End.

_Enjoy_

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Rose sat on the grass, her back against the TARDIS. She looked over the marketplace and sighed nervously. It looked basically the same as the marketplace on this planet in her universe. _The old universe_, she reprimanded herself. This was her universe now.

"So," The Doctor said, stepping out of the TARDIS to meet her. "Do I get to find out why you brought us here?"

Rose smiled to him and gestured for him to sit down. He squatted next to her and she pushed him over so that he was sprawled across her lap.

"Ow!" The Doctor complained. "That was extremely unnecessary. These bones don't regenerate like they used to!"

"Quit your crying, Man-boy," Rose scolded playfully. It was an old joke; one that they had kept alive since the first time The Doctor ever cut himself. He had spent days poking and prodding the injury, marvelling at the human healing process. When Rose asked him about it, he had said that his skin didn't regenerate like it used to. At the time, she had been worried, even a little horrified, bur once she had realized that The Doctor thought this inability to heal was a blessing, the whole thing became a big joke.

"It's that letter again," The Doctor said, gesturing to the enveloped in Rose's hand.

"Yeah," she said in reply, running her hands along the now worn-out seal.

"What is it?" The Doctor asked. "You've been carrying it around for months."

Rose smiled at him and handed it to him. He read the neat calligraphy on the front and looked back at her, non-plussed.

_Rose Tyler,_

_Open this when you have found what was lost. Not before. You will know._

"I don't get it," He said. "What does it mean?"

"No idea," Rose replied. "A woman gave it to me a few years ago. Before the battle of Canary Wharf. It's been on the TARDIS ever since. She said that when I found what I had lost, I should read it."

"You think she meant this?"

"I think she meant you, yes," Rose replied, amused at The Doctor's unwillingness to assume that he himself was the centre and basis of what it was she had lost and found.

"Who was she?" he asked, his eyebrows furrowed. Rose bit her lip at the sight of him; it was the little things like this that she found she had missed the most. The way his eyebrows furrowed when he was trying to solve a problem, the way he shuffled his feet when he was being complimented by someone unexpected, the way he flicked his tongue so exaggeratedly when he was emphasizing a word…

"I don't know," Rose replied, her mind returning The Doctor's question.

"Wait," he said, fierce eyes suddenly piercing hers. A smile tugged at her lips as she recognised this symptom. A brainwave was forming. "Just before the Battle of Canary Wharf?"

Rose nodded. "Just before. A week, if that…" she trailed off, following the Doctor's erratic eyes wander.

"Well that's a bit of a coincidence, don't you think?" he asked. "Just before? Now if you ask me, and you haven't but I can tell, Rose Tyler, that you would have if I hadn't run off my gob just now, this mysterious messenger woman is a time traveller."

His tongue sculpted the last word with vigour. The Doctor grinned. He was clearly impressed with himself.

"Yeah…" Rose agreed awkwardly, "See, I knew that already…"

"Darn," the Doctor exclaimed, "Here I was thinking I was using my superior Time-Lord brain. Just my simple human head, after all…"

"Oi!"

"Did I say simple?" The Doctor backtracked, before grinning again. "You did just say you didn't know who she was."

"And you just said that I might have gotten a word in edge-wise if you hadn't let your gob run off."

"Touché," the Doctor said, bowing his head. "Then tell me, Rose, what do you know about her."

Rose smiled, proud that she won the battle.

"Well, she came just before the Battle of Canary Wharf. We were here in 2045, and you were looking for tea."

"Oh! Bathingswallow Cupcake Tea! Love that stuff! Well, loved it that one time. Well, liked it at least. Well, it wasn't horrible…"

Rose raised an eyebrow. The Doctor didn't seem to notice.

"Actually, there's still some in the TARDIS," The Doctor said, springing to his feet and rummaging through his pockets for his TARDIS key. "Never finished it. Looked at it a lot, actually. After…well, you know. After Canary Wharf. Didn't drink it though. Horrible stuff…"

He stopped suddenly, taking his hand out of his pocket and rapping it lightly against the TARDIS door. "Except, that was the…other TARDIS…" he said, defeated. "Other Doctor."

Rose winced at the defeated look on The Doctor's face. It was a look she wasn't used to seeing, though it was one that The Doctor's companions after Rose had seen several times. Hopelessness ad defeat. Something The Doctor had never allowed himself to feel while he had Rose. Her return somehow hadn't erased the look from his vocabulary. At least, not yet. Rose used the moment of silence to join the Doctor. She stood in between him and the TARDIS door and looked at him.

"You're not used to it yet, Doctor. That's all." She took his hand, his human hand in hers, willing him to see that she understood, that she didn't mind that he was human.

"I know," he said back, softly. "It just takes time. You humans can adapt to anything."

"We humans" she corrected.

"Right. Exactly."

"You will. You'll adapt. It'll just take time."

"Yeah," the Doctor agreed, ashamed of his moment of weakness.

"Besides," Rose said, rubbing the TARDIS door, lovingly. "We've got all the time in the world."

"That we do, Rose Tyler. That we do." He smiled again and placed a chaste kiss on her forehead. "Now tell me," he said, sitting back down on the grass. "That letter."

"Right," Rose said, sitting back down next to him. "River Song gave me this letter in the year 2045 and it's been on the TARDIS ever since. I remembered it when we were on our way to Bad Wolf Bay and I tucked it into my pocket."

Rose shot a smile at The Doctor, but stopped half way, her lips slackening. "What?" She asked. He had that look on his face; not the brainwave face, but rather, the face she was used to seeing when The Doctor was adding two and two to get Raxicalicofalibratorius.

"River Song," he repeated back at her.

"Yeah," Rose replied. "She said you didn't know her."

"I didn't," The Doctor said. "Not then."

"But you do now?"

"We met once, in a library…with Donna…" he seemed lost in his own thoughts again. "She gave you a letter?"

Rose nodded, holding it in front of her face. He snatched it off her with a belated 'sorry, may I?' He didn't open it, but ran it along his fingers. He sniffed it a few times and even licked the corner of the envelope.

"This is about the future," he said, warningly.

Rose's eyes widened. "From when she knows you?" she asked.

The Doctor shook his head. "From when she knows _him."_

"Right…right…" Rose said, taking the letter back from him. "Do you want me to read it?

"Do you want to read it?"

Rose nodded. "Do you want to see it?" she asked.

"Do you want me to see it?"

Rose nodded again and leaned over his knees. She carefully unstuck the envelope and pulled out a few pages of beige paper.

"Here we go," Rose said and took a deep breath. They read the letter together.

_Dear Rose Tyler,_

_I'm sorry we were never able to speak properly. Hopefully, now that you are reading this letter, you understand why. I assume that you are now in the alternate universe with the meta-crisis Doctor, and that he is reading this letter with you. The Doctor, my Doctor, would be glad to know you are reading it together, I'm sure._

_I'm not sure when exactly you will read this, but I'm hoping you haven't been in the new universe long. I'm hoping you haven't forgotten about this letter and I'm hoping that its contents will lighten the guilt you must be feeling. I don't know you, Rose Tyler, but I know enough to know that you are guilty for leaving him on his own, regardless of how happy you might be with his meta-crisis twin. It has been hard on all partiers, believe me. He doesn't talk about it if he can help it, but I know that The Doctor felt terrible for abandoning you. He thought it was best. He hoped you could be happy. I hope you are too._

_The Doctor has changed since he left you. There was a series of events that he refuses to talk about, resulting in his regeneration. He is a new man. Once, long ago, he mentioned to me that you would find solace in knowing that not long after he left you, he changed. Further proof that he made the right decision in leaving you with his human self._

_What I wanted most to tell you was that he is not alone. I know how guilty you must feel, but you must know that he is happy and loved. By the time you read this letter, he will have already met his new companions, Rory and Amy. They are good people and they have saved him in more ways than I can count. I know that deep down he misses you still, but it is the pain of a generation past, one that stays but dulls in time. Ask your Doctor to explain the sensation and you will understand._

_The Doctor is well and well-loved. Remember this as you embark on your new adventure with your new Doctor. Do not sorrow for him, or feel guilt. The man you knew lives on in the human meta-crisis. Live on in happiness and good health with him._

_I'm sorry that you and I were never able to speak properly, Rose Tyler. I would have liked to thank you for helping to shape the man I love. _

_Be fantastic, for him_

_River Song._

It was a long time before either of them spoke. Rose was lost in her own thoughts, in thoughts that barely let themselves reach her conscious mind. The Doctor had regenerated. He wasn't her Doctor anymore. She was surprised to find relief mixed with the sorrow she felt.

She hadn't been able to move on, not completely, from her parting with The Doctor in Bad Wolf Bay. River Song had been right, she had been guilty beyond belief to have left him on his own. She had also felt betrayed at being abandoned and guilty for the happiness she felt about her new life with her new Doctor. Perhaps she didn't need to feel that guilt anymore. He was well-loved, she had said, by Rory and Amy, his new companions. And River Song. The woman who had known all those years ago that Rose would be here now, with her Doctor. That thought made the whole thing seem like fate. And somehow, that comforted her.

"Spoilers…" The Doctor muttered.

"What?' Rose whispered, tearing herself from her thoughts.

"When I met River Song, she talked about spoilers. Not mentioning things that would change our future."

"Yours and River Song's?"

"I guess so…"

Rose looked at him square in the face. He looked as shell-shocked as she felt. "Do you think they're together?" she asked, suddenly, her voice coming out more strongly than the squeak she had expected.

"I dunno," The Doctor replied. "It feels strange to think about it, really. Me as a different man…"

"I think it's easier," Rose replied. "He's not you anymore."

"No," The Doctor agreed. "Not without you."

Rose's eyebrows furrowed.

"That didn't come out right. It's all in the regeneration. Last time I regenerated, it was around you, with you, because of you, for you. You were the basis of my regeneration, you were everywhere around me, inside me. My accent changed to match yours. Even my looks changed to be more suited to you."

Rose blushed.

"Haven't you ever wondered why my accent changed? It was because of you, Rose Tyler. You literally made me the man I am today." He grinned widely. "Now, the other me, he didn't have the luxury of a Rose Tyler in his life come regeneration time. I don't know what he had, but whatever it was, it would have shaped him. Changed him. He will still remember you, of course, but his memories will be old, like the old man he is. That's the way of the Time-Lords. We never forget, but we can also never remember. Not in the same way we once did. Otherwise there'd be too much information in there." He tapped his head. "I, on the other hand, have the luxury of never having to leave you. Never regenerating. Never changing."

"The Doctor as I know him is you," Rose agreed, laying her hand on his arm. "Only you."

"Yeah," the Doctor said, quietly, humbly. "And he's safe. And he's well loved."

"And so are you."

It was like she had been carrying the TARDIS on her back and it had finally started to fly on its own. Rose's conscience felt clear, her shoulders light and her heart free of the guilt she had carried with her. She no longer felt abandoned, forgotten of betrayed. And for a moment that lasted longer than many of their previous moments, the rest of the universe was forgotten as Rose and the Doctor remembered each other.

_fin_


End file.
